Morning Agenda: Big Promises and Family Businesses

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Gary Cohn at Trump Tower in Manhattan in December. Mr. Cohn resigned as president of Goldman Sachs in mid-December to become the director of President Trump’s National Economic Council.CreditCreditKevin Hagen for The New York Times

Anxiety is particularly focused on the National Security Council, where staff members read President Trump’s Twitter posts in the morning and struggle to make policy to fit them.

The job of the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, is also hanging in the balance.

Investigators are examining what he told the Russian ambassador to the United States about the lifting of sanctions imposed in the final days of the Obama administration.

At the same time, the economic cabinet is mostly empty, making Gary Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, the go-to figure on jobs, business and growth. Mr. Cohn has been tasked with regulatory relief and managing tax reforms, improving infrastructure and helping revamp the Affordable Care Act.

While positions on the cabinet are waiting to be filled, Asia’s biggest deal makers have been trooping over to make big promises to Mr. Trump.

It is partly because they identify with Mr. Trump’s way of doing business.

“It plays directly into their style,” said Alberto Moel, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “These guys are political animals. They live in Asia, where things are different. There’s more autocracy and more connected transactions. In the U.S., people still expect things to be fair.”

The Asian executives also have plenty at stake — they come from a region that Mr. Trump has accused of using unfair trade practices and stealing jobs.

American firms, by contrast, have made largely symbolic or modest promises to keep a small number of jobs in the United States.

Coming Up

• The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries publishes members’ oil output numbers for January. Producers agreed to cuts in production late last year with the aim of propping up prices, and members are expected to have made the agreed trims.